I'm still adjusting emotionally, but I'm really starting to feel a lot more settled into life here lately. I know where most things are in the city now and can get around by bike or car, I've visited a lot of places and discovered some preferences and favorites, I feel accepted into the group of other ALTs here in the area, I'm getting along well with most of my teacher co-workers and I think they like me too, and my students are starting to show me more and more affection. The week before last I talked about Halloween and had a trick-or-treat demonstration with volunteers that most classes loved even if the participants were shy and a little unwilling in many cases, and this week I had a lot of really good classes, including some classes I had previously written off as unreachable and full of bad kids. Classes I always dreaded going to, and yet by the end of both of those classes, thanks to an activity the Japanese teacher introduced that gave me a lot more one-on-one time with many students, the kids were either arm-wrestling me or playing with my hair. I left the classroom, and one girl pops her head out into the hallway to wish me goodbye personally. Then I pass the most disruptive kid out in the hallway, and he acknowledges me in a way that feels like almost-fond acceptance. Yesterday, I was using the third-years' restroom (I think most teachers don't use the bathrooms off the classrooms, but I am not walking all the way across the school between classes to use the staff restroom) and a big group of girls was clustered around the mirrors looking at makeup or something. One girl sees me trying to get to the sink and says "You're in Sarah's way" so they will move. I also ate the school lunch (curry!) with a class and had a blast, hanging out with them during post-lunch break time and cleaning time too. Near the end of the day, two girls came up to my desk in the staff room and one said "Sarah, I love you! Very cute!" and the other wondered if my eye color was due to colored contacts......... hahaha.
I'm starting to feel like I belong.
Of course, I've decided to leave after the school year ends in March after all. Haha. Well, it won't be the same next year anyway: two of the Japanese teachers that I get along with really well (I went shopping with them last week! And have gotten lunch with both individually) won't be here next year, and of course all the third-years will have graduated and I have the most connections with third-year students at the moment. But yeah, ideally I'd stay. And I think if I was 22 and this was my first job out of college and I had no connections back home like a serious relationship, I would. But my circumstances are different. I can't just hang around wherever doing whatever. I need to only do things that directly contribute to the progress of my Japanese, so that I don't have to be here any longer than necessary. Of course, there are many great things about being here, things I missed after I left Japan the last two times and that I will certainly miss when I leave again (the variety of drinks you can get from vending machines, stores like Muji and Uniqlo, Shinto shrines, etc, just off the top of my head). But I miss home a lot. I miss my boyfriend. We are keeping our connection strong by chatting online almost every day, but it's still hard.
So, in April I'm moving to the Tokyo area to strike out on my own. We'll see what happens. I'll have 90 days to find a new job before I get into some visa/immigration issues, so hopefully that's enough time to get another visa-sponsoring job, ideally one that isn't teaching English (but I'll do that if I get desperate). I'm going to live in a dorm or guesthouse/sharehouse in the suburbs (read: somewhere cheap) to start off with. A couple other teachers here are planning to move closer to Tokyo, and it would be fun to get to hang out with them there. I also know several other people in or near Tokyo, and am looking forward to being closer to them as well. I really hope it all works out, but if it doesn't--if I don't find anything, or I run out of money, or what--then I just have to come home and figure out my life from there. And that doesn't sound so bad. I can always self-study and try to go freelance as a pro translator from wherever I am. We'll see. I'm trying not to worry too much about sticking to rigid plans for my future, and just making decisions from the moment.
I'd also like to attend a Japanese program that starts next year, but it's very expensive and I didn't have much luck with the scholarships last year. I'm not feeling very motivated to try again this year, but I probably will give it a shot and see what happens.
I think the only thing I'm still not very fond of about life here is living alone in an apartment that's pretty geographically isolated from the other people I know, even though it's a fairly good location in the city. I don't like living alone, it makes me too nervous. But I have regular things that get me out of the apartment. I'm still going to yoga at my gym on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings, grabbing curry with the other teachers on Wednesdays (before yoga), and I've joined a Japanese class that meets on Thursday nights. It's just me and another ALT whose Japanese is near mine as students in the class, so the class is right at our level. Last time we went over the Japanese translation of Macbeth. I'm studying Japanese during my free periods at school and trying to get better about studying in my free time. The JLPT is in less than a month and I need to pass N2!
Other highlights from the past couple months:
- I got my first real paycheck, but they took almost all of it to pay for my apartment start-up costs. At the end of this month I'll get my first real FULL paycheck!
- doing a lot of shopping and ending up with a much more robust wardrobe of long-sleeved shirts and tights
- visiting many/most of the shrines in the area
- catching a couple gorgeous sunsets over the lake
- going to a hot springs bath attached to the hotel where we had our formal work dinner after the music festival before the dinner began; also going to the foot-only bath found outside a nearby train station
- watching the drum parade through the city
- sending some care packages home
- getting to know everyone here better
I'm going to Beppu in a couple weeks to visit my sister, and we're going to Thailand over Christmas! We're going to spend New Year's back in Japan, in Fukuoka. Excited!
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
English teaching in 1890 in my city
I'm still planning to move when my contract is up, but in many ways this is a very nice city to live in for the next several months. One good thing is that I can read essays written about life here in the 1890s--essays originally written in English by an Irish man! I'm not going to say his name because he only spent significant time in two places in Japan outside Tokyo, and if I did his name could be linked to the name of my city and thus to this blog, which I'd rather keep under the radar so I can be honest (there aren't many blogs about my city!). Besides, English speakers don't know him anyway, even though he's famous in Japan.
I'm not actually his greatest fan, as he tends to exoticize and idealize Japan and Japanese people (for example, he once observed a class of Japanese and English children learning to write calligraphy for the first time, and decided that because the Japanese children could do it better, it means there is some innate physical quality that embodies their culture in them. Um, how about the simple fact that Japanese children have been surrounded by Japanese written characters all their lives, and are extremely familiar with them, and English children have not? It has nothing to do with genetics!! Human beings are human beings! Anyone, regardless of race, raised in a culture can do anything the other people of that culture can). Also, I don't know why he insisted on romanizing か as kwa when the sound made is ka! Unnecessarily exoticizing! Drives me crazy, especially when you still hear today about "kwanzen cherry trees" when the kwa sound does not exist in Japanese! It's kanzen cherries!!
However, despite his faults, reading his works is a great way to learn more about my city, and I've found out some very interesting things I wouldn't know otherwise. Plus, it's amazing that I can read an account of a place in Japan I'm familiar with about how it was in 1890, and compare.
Mostly he wrote about visiting shrines and temples in Japan, but a few essays center on his life in my city and his experiences teaching English (he came to Japan as a journalist, but liked it so much he moved to my city to teach English in order to stay here, where he met his wife--a Japanese woman--and had a family with her, becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen and adopting her last name. Their descendents live in this city today). The English teacher essay in particular is interesting to me... so many things still ring true today, but so many things are very very different!
This all took place in 1890.
I'm not actually his greatest fan, as he tends to exoticize and idealize Japan and Japanese people (for example, he once observed a class of Japanese and English children learning to write calligraphy for the first time, and decided that because the Japanese children could do it better, it means there is some innate physical quality that embodies their culture in them. Um, how about the simple fact that Japanese children have been surrounded by Japanese written characters all their lives, and are extremely familiar with them, and English children have not? It has nothing to do with genetics!! Human beings are human beings! Anyone, regardless of race, raised in a culture can do anything the other people of that culture can). Also, I don't know why he insisted on romanizing か as kwa when the sound made is ka! Unnecessarily exoticizing! Drives me crazy, especially when you still hear today about "kwanzen cherry trees" when the kwa sound does not exist in Japanese! It's kanzen cherries!!
However, despite his faults, reading his works is a great way to learn more about my city, and I've found out some very interesting things I wouldn't know otherwise. Plus, it's amazing that I can read an account of a place in Japan I'm familiar with about how it was in 1890, and compare.
Mostly he wrote about visiting shrines and temples in Japan, but a few essays center on his life in my city and his experiences teaching English (he came to Japan as a journalist, but liked it so much he moved to my city to teach English in order to stay here, where he met his wife--a Japanese woman--and had a family with her, becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen and adopting her last name. Their descendents live in this city today). The English teacher essay in particular is interesting to me... so many things still ring true today, but so many things are very very different!
This all took place in 1890.
It is my first day at the schools. Nishida Sentaro, the Japanese teacher of English, has taken me through the buildings, introduced me to the Directors, and to all my future colleagues, given me all necessary instructions about hours and about textbooks, and furnished my desk with all things necessary. Before teaching begins, however, I must be introduced to the Governor of the Province, Koteda Yasusada, with whom my contract has been made, through the medium of his secretary.Ha! That's still the same! Working with your JTE (Japanese teacher of English), meeting the bigwigs at the board of education before beginning teaching...
Teaching Japanese boys turns out to be a much more agreeable task than I had imagined. Each class has been so well prepared for me beforehand by Nishida that my utter ignorance of Japanese makes no difficulty in regard to teaching: moreover, although the lads cannot understand my words always when I speak, they can understand whatever I write upon the blackboard with chalk. Most of them have already been studying English from childhood, with Japanese teachers. All are wonderfully docile and patient. According to old custom, when the teacher enters, the whole class rises and bows to him. He returns the bow, and calls the roll.
[...] As I take my place at the desk, a voice rings out in English: 'Stand up!' And all rise with a springy movement as if moved by machinery. 'Bow down!' the same voice again commands—the voice of a young student wearing a captain's stripes upon his sleeve; and all salute me. I bow in return; we take our seats; and the lesson begins.
All teachers at the Normal School are saluted in the same military fashion before each class-hour—only the command is given in Japanese. For my sake only, it is given in English.
It's true that they can understand what's written better than what's spoken, and the stand-and-bow that begins (and ends) every class is still exactly the same today. But... docile? Patient? Springy machine-like movement? Um... no. Not so much. Most of the time, the students reluctantly stand up, with many stragglers, many still chatting and moving about the room, and sometimes it takes three tries before everyone will bow properly. And it's never conducted in English, even during English class.
I was especially fascinated to learn that the Japanese tradition of sports day (my school calls it 体育会 taiiku-kai, but it's also known as 運動会 undou-kai, among other names) was in existence then, and at that time all the schools held one event, on the castle grounds! (Nowadays each school has its own, on its own school grounds.) And the three-legged race and the tug of war were still held, same as they are today. Simply astonishing to realize how long some traditions go back!
I was especially fascinated to learn that the Japanese tradition of sports day (my school calls it 体育会 taiiku-kai, but it's also known as 運動会 undou-kai, among other names) was in existence then, and at that time all the schools held one event, on the castle grounds! (Nowadays each school has its own, on its own school grounds.) And the three-legged race and the tug of war were still held, same as they are today. Simply astonishing to realize how long some traditions go back!
All teaching in the modern Japanese system of education is conducted with the utmost kindness and gentleness. The teacher is a teacher only: he is not, in the English sense of mastery, a master. He stands to his pupils in the relation of an elder brother. He never tries to impose his will upon them: he never scolds, he seldom criticizes, he scarcely ever punishes. No Japanese teacher ever strikes a pupil: such an act would cost him his post at once. He never loses his temper: to do so would disgrace him in the eyes of his boys and in the judgment of his colleagues. Practically speaking, there is no punishment in Japanese schools. Sometimes very mischievous lads are kept in the schoolhouse during recreation time; yet even this light penalty is not inflicted directly by the teacher, but by the director of the school on complaint of the teacher. The purpose in such cases is not to inflict pain by deprivation of enjoyment, but to give public illustration of a fault; and in the great majority of instances, consciousness of the fault thus brought home to a lad before his comrades is quite enough to prevent its repetition. No such cruel punition as that of forcing a dull pupil to learn an additional task, or of sentencing him to strain his eyes copying four or five hundred lines, is ever dreamed of. Nor would such forms of punishment, in the present state of things, be long tolerated by the pupils themselves. The general policy of the educational authorities everywhere throughout the empire is to get rid of students who cannot be perfectly well managed without punishment; and expulsions, nevertheless, are rare.[...] I have said that severity on the part of teachers would scarcely be tolerated by the students themselves—a fact which may sound strange to English or American ears. Tom Brown's school does not exist in Japan; the ordinary public school much more resembles the ideal Italian institution so charmingly painted for us in the Cuore of De Amicis. Japanese students furthermore claim and enjoy an independence contrary to all Occidental ideas of disciplinary necessity. In the Occident the master expels the pupil. In Japan it happens quite as often that the pupil expels the master. Each public school is an earnest, spirited little republic, to which director and teachers stand only in the relation of president and cabinet. They are indeed appointed by the prefectural government upon recommendation by the Educational Bureau at the capital; but in actual practice they maintain their positions by virtue of their capacity and personal character as estimated by their students, and are likely to be deposed by a revolutionary movement whenever found wanting. It has been alleged that the students frequently abuse their power. But this allegation has been made by European residents, strongly prejudiced in favour of masterful English ways of discipline. (I recollect that an English Yokohama paper, in this connection, advocated the introduction of the birch.) My own observations have convinced me, as larger experience has convinced some others, that in most instances of pupils rebelling against a teacher, reason is upon their side. They will rarely insult a teacher whom they dislike, or cause any disturbance in his class: they will simply refuse to attend school until he be removed. Personal feeling may often be a secondary, but it is seldom, so far as I have been able to learn, the primary cause for such a demand. A teacher whose manners are unsympathetic, or even positively disagreeable, will be nevertheless obeyed and revered while his students remain persuaded of his capacity as a teacher, and his sense of justice; and they are as keen to discern ability as they are to detect partiality. And, on the other hand, an amiable disposition alone will never atone with them either for want of knowledge or for want of skill to impart it. I knew one case, in a neighbouring public school, of a demand by the students for the removal of their professor of chemistry. In making their complaint, they frankly declared: 'We like him. He is kind to all of us; he does the best he can. But he does not know enough to teach us as we wish to be taught. He cannot answer our questions. He cannot explain the experiments which he shows us. Our former teacher could do all these things. We must have another teacher.' Investigation proved that the lads were quite right. The young teacher had graduated at the university; he had come well recommended: but he had no thorough knowledge of the science which he undertook to impart, and no experience as a teacher. The instructor's success in Japan is not guaranteed by a degree, but by his practical knowledge and his capacity to communicate it simply and thoroughly.
Well. Let's just say this explains A LOT, and that students by no means behave this well today, and yet the (lack of) discipline on the part of the teachers hasn't changed. This is one of the most frustrating thing about teaching in Japanese schools today: everyone expects that the students will want to learn, and thus won't misbehave, but this is no longer the case. Many students want to misbehave, but there are no real procedures in place to deal with those students, no real punishments that would deter them, such as the threat of having to repeat the same year of school, or get expelled, or so on. None of those possibilities even exist; the students know that whatever they do in class, whatever their grade is--even if it's failing--they will graduate to the next year. So, if it's all the same no matter what you do, why not goof off? And there's close to nothing we can do about it. Japanese culture is supposed to step in here and compel them to behave, but that doesn't happen all the time, and it's not reliable at all. What a mess.
(You'll note that the author is in awe of it and thinks it's great--an example of how he idealized Japanese people and culture.)
Seven years of study are required to give the Japanese youth merely the necessary knowledge of his own triple system of ideographs—or, in less accurate but plainer speech, the enormous alphabet of his native literature. That literature, also, he must study, and the art of two forms of his language—the written and the spoken: likewise, of course, he must learn native history and native morals. Besides these Oriental studies, his course includes foreign history, geography, arithmetic, astronomy, physics, geometry, natural history, agriculture, chemistry, drawing, and mathematics. Worst of all, he must learn English—a language of which the difficulty to the Japanese cannot be even faintly imagined by anyone unfamiliar with the construction of the native tongue—a language so different from his own that the very simplest Japanese phrase cannot be intelligibly rendered into English by a literal translation of the words or even the form of the thought.
Yes... so true. English is very difficult for them because it has so many things utterly foreign to them. I honestly don't know what it's like to have so much difficulty with a foreign language, so I have a hard time relating to my students about this.
Indeed, the compositions of any number of middle-school students upon the same subject are certain to be very much alike in idea and sentiment—though they are none the less charming for that. As a rule the Japanese student shows little originality in the line of imagination. His imagination was made for him long centuries ago—partly in China, partly in his native land. From his childhood he is trained to see and to feel Nature exactly in the manner of those wondrous artists who, with a few swift brushstrokes, fling down upon a sheet of paper the colour-sensation of a chilly dawn, a fervid noon, an autumn evening.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Sometimes, how everyone seems to think the same and say the same things to you on the same subjects can get pretty grating. Especially when you get the same questions, and same remarks, with the same words, over and over.
All that aside, life in my city is pretty good for now (eventually, everyone goes a bit stir-crazy being so isolated up here among the mountains that make it so difficult to get away). As it's a lakeside city (with a river from the lake running through it), the sunsets over the lake are especially gorgeous.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Today, like every other Saturday so far (except last Saturday because it was a holiday and classes at the gym were canceled), I rode my bike to the 11:00 yoga class at my gym, the one taught by a parent at my school and attended by another parent at my school. After class ended I went by the bank/post office (same place!) to get my passbook (it's like a checkbook) updated in the ATM, and went by the fancy grocery store that sells imported international goods to get almonds and check if any treats caught my eye. I ended up getting bacon and a twisty doughnut. Then I went next door to the bakery (really more styled like a French pâtisserie, though Asian-style in that you take a tray and a pair of tongs and make your way around choosing things to place on the tray, which you then bring to the register) and got a cornet-shaped pastry filled with custard cream and a frosted roll with swirls of poppyseed paste and walnut bits (absolutely delicious). I don't usually eat bread and other grain-based things, but some weekends I like to indulge in pastries for breakfast, so I was getting things for today and tomorrow. The night before I had already gotten orange juice and iced coffee so I would be all ready to go once I got back.
On my way home, I remembered that my company had asked me to take my car in to a shop to get inspected today, and had asked me to go early in case it needed to be there all day. Instant flash of irritation. Immediately annoyed that they wanted us to use our Saturdays like that when my car runs perfectly fine, I decided that wasn't going to stop me from the relaxing post-yoga time at home I had planned. I would relax first, then see about going to get the car inspected. And that's exactly what I did! I did sort of forget about the inspection though, until 4:30 or so, so I had to call the shop to make sure it was still okay to bring it in and they could get it taken care of that day. It was, so I got ready and drove down to the shop. I am soooo glad one of the other English teachers who's been living here longer than me gave me a GPS he doesn't need since he bought an iPhone. It has been indispensable. It's in Japanese, and I could set it to English it looks like, but where's the fun in that?
At the shop they told me it would be an hour wait. I had already decided, though, that since the shop was located pretty close to the river and the adjacent downtown areas with lots of cultural attractions, there was no way I was sitting for an hour in a mechanic shop waiting room, one of my least favorite places in the world and where I have spent many bored, unhappy hours in motor oil-scented air watching bad television or listening to bad radio (without the ability to navigate away from the ads). Even though I had brought my Kindle loaded with JK Rowling's new novel to entertain me this time, for once there were destinations worth going to within walking distance of the shop (which is never the case at home), and the weather was nice (well, overcast but not raining). So, I told them I was going on a walk and would be back in an hour, and set off!
I love Shinto shrines and my city is an old one so it's chock full of them (and Buddhist temples, but I'm not so interested in those for whatever reason). I knew there would be at least one within walking distance and there was. I looked it up on my GPS and we were ready to go! (It turns out my walking speed is 3-4 km/hr, in case you were wondering.) I walked along the river, over the bridge, and into what I recognized as the entertainment district where we'd had our get-together to celebrate birthdays and the arrivals of the new ALTs. Let's just say it looks different in daylight!
To my surprise the shrine I was looking for was right across the street from the izakaya where we had begun those festivities! I had no idea.
I don't know why I like going to shrines. It's just very peaceful inside, and I love all the rituals involved. It's so calming to go through the motions. So far, all the shrines I've visited in this city have been devoid of visitors, so I've had the grounds all to myself. This one was the same. It looked well maintained, and I had a wonderful time just browsing around. I was surprised to find it even had a public restroom, and when I went in to use it, I ran into a priest just exiting the area, since that's their bathroom too. Haha!
Then I looked around for another shrine, and there was one five minutes away. When I arrived, I was delighted to find that it was a fox shrine! I love foxes. This one was also pretty well maintained, also totally devoid of other visitors, and had a nice array of goods for sale. There were arrows and protective charms and ema, and I'll definitely be coming back for some when New Year's rolls around I'm sure. I wanted a cute fox-shaped charm/phone strap I saw, which I was able to purchase once I found a woman who worked/lived there. I love it! Oh, and the best part of that shrine was that the inside of the building was open to the public! Usually, you can only catch a glimpse of the artifacts on display inside from the outer porch where the offertory box is, but you can't go inside to where they are. But this time I was able to enter (taking off my shoes and putting on guest slippers) and look at the sort of 'inner sanctum' -- that's probably the first time I've ever been able to go inside a shrine like that. Sooo cool. I really liked that shrine and want to go back.
Mostly, though, that area was jam-packed full of Buddhist temples. That shrine was surrounded by a little less than a dozen, most next door to one another. A path lined with temples took me back to the bridge, and the scent of incense filled the air.
Then I picked up my car and came back home! Best car inspection experience ever.
On my way home, I remembered that my company had asked me to take my car in to a shop to get inspected today, and had asked me to go early in case it needed to be there all day. Instant flash of irritation. Immediately annoyed that they wanted us to use our Saturdays like that when my car runs perfectly fine, I decided that wasn't going to stop me from the relaxing post-yoga time at home I had planned. I would relax first, then see about going to get the car inspected. And that's exactly what I did! I did sort of forget about the inspection though, until 4:30 or so, so I had to call the shop to make sure it was still okay to bring it in and they could get it taken care of that day. It was, so I got ready and drove down to the shop. I am soooo glad one of the other English teachers who's been living here longer than me gave me a GPS he doesn't need since he bought an iPhone. It has been indispensable. It's in Japanese, and I could set it to English it looks like, but where's the fun in that?
At the shop they told me it would be an hour wait. I had already decided, though, that since the shop was located pretty close to the river and the adjacent downtown areas with lots of cultural attractions, there was no way I was sitting for an hour in a mechanic shop waiting room, one of my least favorite places in the world and where I have spent many bored, unhappy hours in motor oil-scented air watching bad television or listening to bad radio (without the ability to navigate away from the ads). Even though I had brought my Kindle loaded with JK Rowling's new novel to entertain me this time, for once there were destinations worth going to within walking distance of the shop (which is never the case at home), and the weather was nice (well, overcast but not raining). So, I told them I was going on a walk and would be back in an hour, and set off!
I love Shinto shrines and my city is an old one so it's chock full of them (and Buddhist temples, but I'm not so interested in those for whatever reason). I knew there would be at least one within walking distance and there was. I looked it up on my GPS and we were ready to go! (It turns out my walking speed is 3-4 km/hr, in case you were wondering.) I walked along the river, over the bridge, and into what I recognized as the entertainment district where we'd had our get-together to celebrate birthdays and the arrivals of the new ALTs. Let's just say it looks different in daylight!
To my surprise the shrine I was looking for was right across the street from the izakaya where we had begun those festivities! I had no idea.
I don't know why I like going to shrines. It's just very peaceful inside, and I love all the rituals involved. It's so calming to go through the motions. So far, all the shrines I've visited in this city have been devoid of visitors, so I've had the grounds all to myself. This one was the same. It looked well maintained, and I had a wonderful time just browsing around. I was surprised to find it even had a public restroom, and when I went in to use it, I ran into a priest just exiting the area, since that's their bathroom too. Haha!
Then I looked around for another shrine, and there was one five minutes away. When I arrived, I was delighted to find that it was a fox shrine! I love foxes. This one was also pretty well maintained, also totally devoid of other visitors, and had a nice array of goods for sale. There were arrows and protective charms and ema, and I'll definitely be coming back for some when New Year's rolls around I'm sure. I wanted a cute fox-shaped charm/phone strap I saw, which I was able to purchase once I found a woman who worked/lived there. I love it! Oh, and the best part of that shrine was that the inside of the building was open to the public! Usually, you can only catch a glimpse of the artifacts on display inside from the outer porch where the offertory box is, but you can't go inside to where they are. But this time I was able to enter (taking off my shoes and putting on guest slippers) and look at the sort of 'inner sanctum' -- that's probably the first time I've ever been able to go inside a shrine like that. Sooo cool. I really liked that shrine and want to go back.
Mostly, though, that area was jam-packed full of Buddhist temples. That shrine was surrounded by a little less than a dozen, most next door to one another. A path lined with temples took me back to the bridge, and the scent of incense filled the air.
Then I picked up my car and came back home! Best car inspection experience ever.
Monday, September 17, 2012
The past 3-4 weeks
Finally, I'm settling into daily life a bit more... and I can write another update. It's taken a while for things to calm down a little bit, and it all still feels terribly new, but I'm slowly getting more and more used to it.
Well, let's go back to training in East Hiroshima (45 minutes away from the city center, out in the middle of nowhere!), which was three weeks ago now. There were definitely some stressful moments, and some I-want-to-run-away-so-I-don't-have-to-do-this moments, but in the end I made it through, I completed my final exam (teaching a 30-minute lesson), and I'm so glad it's all behind me. The highlight for me was getting to go out one night and meet up with Itou-sensei, one of my teachers (an intern; she's still in grad school) from Middlebury this summer! Conveniently, she happens to live and go to school right near where my training was held! I say my teacher, but she's actually two years younger than me. We're still used to being teacher and student so we use polite Japanese with each other, like we did at Middlebury. I'd like to eventually start using more casual speech patterns though... someday! Anyway, some of the trainers dropped me off at the closest train station, and she met me there and we walked to a nearby izakaya (Japanese bar and grill) and had some drinks and food. The conversation was largely Middlebury gossip. It was so much fun!!! I think we both had a really, really good time.
At training, I enjoyed getting to hear so many different accents. English, Australian, Irish... all so delightful. I agreed to go running with one of the Australians one morning before training, only to find out he'd been a gym trainer so he made us go through this ridiculous obstacle course and do burpees on curbs. IT WAS AWFUL. Mistake!! Mistake... but running around the rice paddies and such was lovely, at least.
Also, on Friday night after training was over and we'd all done our final exams that day, trainers and trainees all went out to an izakaya together and had a multi-course meal with all-you-can-drink. It was a lot of fun, although I felt that I had overpaid (3800 yen!) so I drank as many drinks as I could to make up for it, which was not a good idea!! Fortunately after that I just wanted to go straight back to the hotel, so I took a taxi back with some other people (including the head of the Hiroshima branch of my company, so the taxi fees were invoiced!) and didn't go to karaoke with a lot of people, who ended up getting totally gypped and everyone had to pay like $40-50 for a few hours of karaoke. Absolutely insane; so glad I wasn't involved in that mess.
At training I found out my school assignment: only one school, a junior high. Before I arrived I had been told my assignment might be one junior high, several elementary schools, so I had been mostly planning on that, and this came as a shock! But it's actually really good to only have one school, and junior high was sounding like a better fit for me anyway, so I'm happy with it.
Saturday morning after our night out, it was time for everyone to depart for their various locations. We were driven to the nearby station, where a lot of us boarded a bullet train for Okayama. Some people got off there, but a few of us transferred to various different things. Sarah, my fellow new teacher in my city (from England, but grew up in the US, where her parents still live), and I rode with one of the trainers who lives in the city next to mine, on the express train north from Okayama. It was a fairly good journey, I enjoyed the scenery (when we weren't plunging into tunnels through mountains that of course obscured all views!) although the trainer warned us that this train is notorious for inducing motion sickness, and I did start to feel a little stomach upset even though I don't usually get motion sick!
Finally, Sarah and I arrived in our town, which is a wonderful/ridiculous mix of old and new. I'm not going to name it, or my company, because I want to be able to be fairly honest here--though I don't plan to do any badmouthing, I'd just rather be safe. Anyway, it's the prefectural capital, and a former samurai seat with tons of history and traditional buildings and so on, it even has an old feudal castle, but the prefecture is very rural. (I've actually realized it's a LOT like my parents' hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska.) Case in point: usually when you exit a Japanese train station, you feed your ticket into a machine. Here in my city? There is an actual person who takes your ticket from you. An actual person. I have seriously never seen that before. We are not in Tokyo--or its suburbs, even--anymore, kids!!! Where am I?!
Anyway, so we physically handed our tickets to a real live person, exited the gates, and were met with two Japanese women and one American, another teacher in our city. Each of us got one Japanese person to escort us around and help us buy daily essentials, take us to our apartments, etc, and the other teacher just came along for the ride because she's friendly and also has a good relationship with one of the women. I got her group. We all walked out together to a parking garage, and in the back of the other teacher's car was a giant bounty of hand-me-downs! Other teachers who had left had given this teacher all the things they didn't want, and we could now pick and choose what we wanted--for free! We divided things up and I wound up with a vacuum, a hot water dispenser, a blanket, clothes hangers, silverware and dishes and mugs, two pans, some tupperware, and a few other things I can't remember. Also, waiting at my apartment complex were two bicycles, one for each of us! All of this, for free! Can you believe it? It was magical.
After we loaded up our luggage and new acquisitions, we separated and went to go shop and go to our apartments. My Japanese helper lady, the other English teacher, and I went around to the dollar store (Japanese dollar stores are infinitely better than American ones, and the best place to get simple home goods for cheap, so I really loaded up there), the department store (where I got bedding, a towel, a bath mat, a quality kitchen knife, and other essentials), McDonald's for dinner, and then the grocery store. It was exhausting! First a train journey, then before even going to my new home immediately setting out to purchase home essentials, so I have to think carefully about what I'll need and be mindful of prices. Oh, and we also picked up my car, which is on a lease, and I drove it (very nervously) back to my apartment.
The next day, the other English teacher agreed to take me around shopping again, so first we went to Uniqlo (sort of like the Gap, it's only in NYC in the US) where I was hoping to get some short-sleeved shirts but they already had all their fall stuff out! I did get a pair of black pants and a pair of khaki pants though, and I'm very pleased with both, especially the fact that the length is perfect for me off-the-rack! American pants are always too long. We also went back to the dollar store, back to the department store, and to another home goods store, and also met up with another English teacher and had lunch at a chain restaurant (overpriced). Back to the grocery store too. That night my largest suitcase was delivered; I had shipped it on ahead of me from the hotel in East Hiroshima where we had training.
The next week I had off; work wasn't going to start until the next week. But I had one day where another Japanese helper person, this time an older man, took me around to all of the various government offices and so on to get all my stuff registered and sorted. We went to immigration to get a new alien registration card, we went to the city office to get me registered as a citizen and signed up for health insurance, we went to the bank to open an account, and we went to buy a cell phone. We also had lunch at a ramen place! I suggested ramen because I knew the old guy would know a great place, and he totally did. That day was SO EXHAUSTING because all the typical Japanese red tape and paperwork was so cumbersome and frustrating, and it just never ended until FINALLY, it was all done!
The next day I went to city hall with all the other new teachers and we were introduced to members of the local board of education. Then I went to my school for the first time to meet the principal, one of the vice principals, and the English teacher in charge of me.
I spent the rest of the week, well, I'd like to say I spent that time getting fully unpacked and putting everything away in my apartment, but that didn't happen for another week after that. The cold that had been brewing since my arrival in Japan finally, thanks to an immune system weakened by jet lag and stress, turned into something that meant I needed to rest as much as possible (I busted into the supply of DayQuil/NyQuil I had wisely brought with me), so that's why I couldn't get to all of that. I even almost canceled going to the board of education and my school that day because I wasn't sure I felt up to it, but I went in the end. When I felt better, partly because I was still too scared to drive my car, I started riding my bike around places and familiarizing myself with my city and my neighborhood. I got my bike registered under my name (which meant some rules had to be overlooked... oops) and I went to a gym I had researched before coming to my city, a gym that had yoga classes, and liked what I saw so I signed up for a membership. The guy who runs the gym is really nice, the gym always plays eurobeat music, and women get a discount on the membership price, which makes it reasonable by Japanese standards (though a good $10-15 more a month than I paid for my membership back home, which was the cheapest around). It's also within biking distance! So far I've biked to the gym whenever I can (whenever it's not raining or about to rain--or stupidly hot).
The Saturday before I started going to my school, the local ALTs had a combination birthday party for four people/welcome party for us new people. It started at an izakaya with all-you-can-drink, and once that ended we made the rounds of a few local bars. One had a second floor that felt like a loft, and one is a "pirate bar" where you can be quite literally locked up in a room (we didn't do that). One is very popular with English teachers and has a lot of themed nights and events. It was really great to get to know everyone in the area better.
Then on Monday September 3, I began my first week at my school. My commute is only five minutes by car, it's pretty great. But that week was all taken over by sports day (sort of like our field day), and I didn't teach at all. I did a lot of sitting in the staff room! The first day, there was an assembly and I gave a speech in English which I'm sure no one except maybe the English teachers understood, and then that day and the next were all rehearsals for sports day, which was Wednesday. It was pretty brutal being outside all morning in the heat and humidity--my job was photographer, even though there was an actual pro photographer there, so I don't know what I was doing--even after I started hanging out mostly in the shade. I brought a 200-ml bottle of water, but it was not enough... I started to feel pretty faint and weak as we got closer to lunch. But I can't even imagine what it was like for the students who had to be out in the middle of the field under the sun, going through event after event. I didn't revive until the end of lunch when they passed out energy drinks and I had gotten myself a little more hydrated. Fortunately for me, at that point it started to rain and thunder! Everyone rushed outside to take down the decorations (giant plywood signs, one for each team--there were six) and all the afternoon events were canceled and postponed until Friday. I still had to be there until 4 though (I go to work from 8:30 to 4 every day).
That night there was an enkai, or formal work party where everyone blows off some steam, at a hotel downtown (which surprised me--usually they're held at izakayas, but there's a lot of staff so we wouldn't fit). Most of the food wasn't to my taste, and there was pretty much just beer to drink (I discovered the wine too late), and we all had assigned seats, so I didn't have a great time, but towards the end people got up and mingled around the room, and I was able to have some pretty good conversations with some of the other teachers. Oh, and they made me give a speech since I'm new, and I seriously credit Middlebury with my ability to do that (all in Japanese) and do it capably. I basically just talked about how I thought I might faint at sports day (which got a laugh, as intended), but I was inspired seeing the students out there working harder under worse conditions, so I was impressed by the students and the teachers, and I want to work as hard as them here, and I'm grateful to everyone for welcoming me, etc etc. It was very much a speech tailored to exactly what Japanese people expect and want to hear. I'm not above pandering if I know how to do it! It had been in the employee newsletter than I speak Japanese, and I'd had conversations with a few people, but the speech basically established to everyone "Oh, her language skills are actually legit. Cool" and that was pretty much what it accomplished for me. Afterwards I got compliments on the speech and my Japanese, and more people seemed willing to approach me and begin a conversation, though that could have been the alcohol too!
After an enkai there's always a nijikai, or second party at a different location (usually karaoke, or going to a smaller restaurant or bar, and about 50-75% of the guests from the first party make it to the second), which I would have liked to attend, but I had taken a taxi there because it was raining, and forgotten to bring enough money to get back home again (the enkai and the taxi were both expensive), so after the party was officially called to an end (how Japanese is that?), the English teacher in charge of me got up to leave and she offered me a ride home, which I gladly accepted!! I knew she lived fairly close to me, so it all worked out.
Thursday the school was closed (I think it had been open for class the previous Saturday, to accommodate sports day, so this was a compensatory day off) and then Friday we basically did the events that would have happened Wednesday if not for the rain.
And then the next week, which was this past one, went back to real classes and I started teaching. I visited every class in the school, which is 18--four a day Monday through Thursday, then two on Friday. In every class, it was me and the full-time English teacher, a Japanese woman (whose English aptitude is at varying levels, shall we say). I start off asking basic questions about the weather, day of the week, and date, and then this week I did a self-introduction. For every class I made a worksheet that corresponded to what I was talking about, and I had pictures. I think my self-intros were definitely educational, as every one incorporated grammar and sentence patterns out of the textbook, but I'm not sure how much the students enjoyed them. But I also don't know what junior high-schooler enjoys school. Well, whatever, I did my best! Most classes were mediocre to okay, not great but not bad. About three were bad, largely thanks to boys who wanted to look cool by making fun of me and imitating things I'd say, do, or even how I'd laugh. Those really got to me and I'm not looking forward to returning, which will unfortunately be every week. However, about 3-4 classes were very awesome and I enjoyed them a lot. I am glad the week is over. I had thought that from now on, I'd just be assisting the full-time teacher, pronouncing words, reading passages, etc, but already one teacher (unfortunately the one for the bad classes!) has asked me to make another worksheet and materials, this time on my summer vacation. I really don't want to... these students are not going to appreciate it... but, obviously, it's my job, so I'll do it.
The teachers at my school are very nice and the majority seem very capable. The students... well, the girls all love me, and comment "cute!" about me all the time, and I get shouts of my name or "Hello!!!" (pronounced the Japanese way) wherever I go, but overall, they all seem to be on the under-disciplined side. I think my school is a bit of a problem one. In Japan, students don't get sent out of the classroom for misbehaving, and there are no consequences if you don't do your work and even if you fail a class. You're still going to graduate. So the students who've figured that out just check out of class. And English, as a foreign language, is hard for them, so that's the one they're going to check out of the most. In every class, the teacher will give directions--write sentences, fill in blanks, etc--and there will be students sleeping, daydreaming, visiting with others, or walking around instead of doing the work. It's pretty appalling but there isn't much that can be done. My job doesn't extend to discipline. All I can do is try to be engaging and appealing, but I am new at this so I'm still pretty nervous and I might not be accomplishing that. And every time a smarmy middle school boy mocks my laugh or my tone of voice, that I am trying hard to keep energetic and upbeat (and therefore not "cool" and middle schoolers must be "cool"), my nerves and self-doubt increase, because I'm not confident or secure in my capability to do this yet.
My contract is until March. After that, I would really like to find a non-teaching job, since I have the Japanese skills for it, if I can manage to get a job like that--and I may not. It's going to be a gamble. But especially when I think about the hard parts of this job, and how isolated my city is (three hours away from the closest big city, Hiroshima), which I have been doing all this past week, I feel very motivated to try as hard as I can to make it happen.
On that note, I'm all registered for level N2 (second-highest one) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which is in December. Getting that certification will help me out a lot when it comes to job-hunting and my resume. I began studying out of N2 textbooks in January, and I study from them at school when I have free periods and no grading or preparing to do, plus I tested in that range on another exam this summer, so I think I should be able to pass it this time (I failed it in 2009). Fingers crossed! Oh, and I took an Oral Proficiency Interview while at Middlebury, and my result was low advanced. Yay!!! I've been upper intermediate forever (that was my level at Middlebury too) so it feels good to break into advanced, finally, in this one small way... even though I still have a long way to go!
For a little while, I was chafing at being here, where I will always look out of place and everyone will assume I don't speak the language, and being so far away from everyone I love especially my boyfriend, cat, and parents (except my sister in Beppu, of course!), but I am getting used to it little by little, as I get more familiar with the area and make more ties to people here. I am enjoying going to yoga (and working out at the gym too), and the Saturday morning yoga teacher is a parent at my school, as is another woman in the class! I have discovered an amazing cafe with wonderful coffee and desserts right by my gym, there is a weekly curry night with other English teachers (although the curry and naan there were among the worst I've ever had, even though actual Indian people run the restaurant and we can order in English from them!), there are a lot of sightseeing spots and restaurants/cafes/shops in this city I still want to explore (I went to the castle today!), and I'm slowly growing more comfortable and rooted here.
In one of my Friday classes, I mentioned I liked yakiniku (grilled meat, AKA Korean barbecue), and I think that inspired the teacher to invite me to a PTA lunch for the third-year students the next day with that as the menu. So I went to that after yoga, and it was really nice, and free! There were tons of griddles and they were cooking up meat, noodles, veggies (pumpkin!)... it was all so so good. As soon as I got there, a boy ran up to me with a plate of food! I think the students were glad to see me there even though a lot of them didn't approach me. I spent a while chatting with the teacher who had invited me, and we exchanged contact information, and will grab a meal together sometime soon! I also asked if I could sit in on the students' Japanese class sometime, because I have a feeling middle school Japanese is around my level in terms of Chinese characters, reading ability, and so on (maybe!!) so I would like to be able to learn along with the students if I can. It looks like I'm going to be able to! I hope I'm not too much of a distraction. That would be a really fun thing to get to do during my free periods, especially on Fridays. And, free Japanese classes for me! Haha.
Well, let's go back to training in East Hiroshima (45 minutes away from the city center, out in the middle of nowhere!), which was three weeks ago now. There were definitely some stressful moments, and some I-want-to-run-away-so-I-don't-have-to-do-this moments, but in the end I made it through, I completed my final exam (teaching a 30-minute lesson), and I'm so glad it's all behind me. The highlight for me was getting to go out one night and meet up with Itou-sensei, one of my teachers (an intern; she's still in grad school) from Middlebury this summer! Conveniently, she happens to live and go to school right near where my training was held! I say my teacher, but she's actually two years younger than me. We're still used to being teacher and student so we use polite Japanese with each other, like we did at Middlebury. I'd like to eventually start using more casual speech patterns though... someday! Anyway, some of the trainers dropped me off at the closest train station, and she met me there and we walked to a nearby izakaya (Japanese bar and grill) and had some drinks and food. The conversation was largely Middlebury gossip. It was so much fun!!! I think we both had a really, really good time.
At training, I enjoyed getting to hear so many different accents. English, Australian, Irish... all so delightful. I agreed to go running with one of the Australians one morning before training, only to find out he'd been a gym trainer so he made us go through this ridiculous obstacle course and do burpees on curbs. IT WAS AWFUL. Mistake!! Mistake... but running around the rice paddies and such was lovely, at least.
Also, on Friday night after training was over and we'd all done our final exams that day, trainers and trainees all went out to an izakaya together and had a multi-course meal with all-you-can-drink. It was a lot of fun, although I felt that I had overpaid (3800 yen!) so I drank as many drinks as I could to make up for it, which was not a good idea!! Fortunately after that I just wanted to go straight back to the hotel, so I took a taxi back with some other people (including the head of the Hiroshima branch of my company, so the taxi fees were invoiced!) and didn't go to karaoke with a lot of people, who ended up getting totally gypped and everyone had to pay like $40-50 for a few hours of karaoke. Absolutely insane; so glad I wasn't involved in that mess.
At training I found out my school assignment: only one school, a junior high. Before I arrived I had been told my assignment might be one junior high, several elementary schools, so I had been mostly planning on that, and this came as a shock! But it's actually really good to only have one school, and junior high was sounding like a better fit for me anyway, so I'm happy with it.
Saturday morning after our night out, it was time for everyone to depart for their various locations. We were driven to the nearby station, where a lot of us boarded a bullet train for Okayama. Some people got off there, but a few of us transferred to various different things. Sarah, my fellow new teacher in my city (from England, but grew up in the US, where her parents still live), and I rode with one of the trainers who lives in the city next to mine, on the express train north from Okayama. It was a fairly good journey, I enjoyed the scenery (when we weren't plunging into tunnels through mountains that of course obscured all views!) although the trainer warned us that this train is notorious for inducing motion sickness, and I did start to feel a little stomach upset even though I don't usually get motion sick!
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| The view out the train window. |
Finally, Sarah and I arrived in our town, which is a wonderful/ridiculous mix of old and new. I'm not going to name it, or my company, because I want to be able to be fairly honest here--though I don't plan to do any badmouthing, I'd just rather be safe. Anyway, it's the prefectural capital, and a former samurai seat with tons of history and traditional buildings and so on, it even has an old feudal castle, but the prefecture is very rural. (I've actually realized it's a LOT like my parents' hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska.) Case in point: usually when you exit a Japanese train station, you feed your ticket into a machine. Here in my city? There is an actual person who takes your ticket from you. An actual person. I have seriously never seen that before. We are not in Tokyo--or its suburbs, even--anymore, kids!!! Where am I?!
Anyway, so we physically handed our tickets to a real live person, exited the gates, and were met with two Japanese women and one American, another teacher in our city. Each of us got one Japanese person to escort us around and help us buy daily essentials, take us to our apartments, etc, and the other teacher just came along for the ride because she's friendly and also has a good relationship with one of the women. I got her group. We all walked out together to a parking garage, and in the back of the other teacher's car was a giant bounty of hand-me-downs! Other teachers who had left had given this teacher all the things they didn't want, and we could now pick and choose what we wanted--for free! We divided things up and I wound up with a vacuum, a hot water dispenser, a blanket, clothes hangers, silverware and dishes and mugs, two pans, some tupperware, and a few other things I can't remember. Also, waiting at my apartment complex were two bicycles, one for each of us! All of this, for free! Can you believe it? It was magical.
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| An example of the type of bike I have. It looks basically like this, same color, except the basket is silver and not as nice-looking, and also the entire bike is a rust bucket, but hey, it was free. The brakes screeched terribly until I finally took it into the bike shop and a very nice older couple helped me; the guy just turned a wrench at the top and the squeak went away completely. Amazing! And they didn't charge me at all. |
After we loaded up our luggage and new acquisitions, we separated and went to go shop and go to our apartments. My Japanese helper lady, the other English teacher, and I went around to the dollar store (Japanese dollar stores are infinitely better than American ones, and the best place to get simple home goods for cheap, so I really loaded up there), the department store (where I got bedding, a towel, a bath mat, a quality kitchen knife, and other essentials), McDonald's for dinner, and then the grocery store. It was exhausting! First a train journey, then before even going to my new home immediately setting out to purchase home essentials, so I have to think carefully about what I'll need and be mindful of prices. Oh, and we also picked up my car, which is on a lease, and I drove it (very nervously) back to my apartment.
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| Not a photo of my car itself, but this is the make/model/color I have. |
The next day, the other English teacher agreed to take me around shopping again, so first we went to Uniqlo (sort of like the Gap, it's only in NYC in the US) where I was hoping to get some short-sleeved shirts but they already had all their fall stuff out! I did get a pair of black pants and a pair of khaki pants though, and I'm very pleased with both, especially the fact that the length is perfect for me off-the-rack! American pants are always too long. We also went back to the dollar store, back to the department store, and to another home goods store, and also met up with another English teacher and had lunch at a chain restaurant (overpriced). Back to the grocery store too. That night my largest suitcase was delivered; I had shipped it on ahead of me from the hotel in East Hiroshima where we had training.
The next week I had off; work wasn't going to start until the next week. But I had one day where another Japanese helper person, this time an older man, took me around to all of the various government offices and so on to get all my stuff registered and sorted. We went to immigration to get a new alien registration card, we went to the city office to get me registered as a citizen and signed up for health insurance, we went to the bank to open an account, and we went to buy a cell phone. We also had lunch at a ramen place! I suggested ramen because I knew the old guy would know a great place, and he totally did. That day was SO EXHAUSTING because all the typical Japanese red tape and paperwork was so cumbersome and frustrating, and it just never ended until FINALLY, it was all done!
The next day I went to city hall with all the other new teachers and we were introduced to members of the local board of education. Then I went to my school for the first time to meet the principal, one of the vice principals, and the English teacher in charge of me.
I spent the rest of the week, well, I'd like to say I spent that time getting fully unpacked and putting everything away in my apartment, but that didn't happen for another week after that. The cold that had been brewing since my arrival in Japan finally, thanks to an immune system weakened by jet lag and stress, turned into something that meant I needed to rest as much as possible (I busted into the supply of DayQuil/NyQuil I had wisely brought with me), so that's why I couldn't get to all of that. I even almost canceled going to the board of education and my school that day because I wasn't sure I felt up to it, but I went in the end. When I felt better, partly because I was still too scared to drive my car, I started riding my bike around places and familiarizing myself with my city and my neighborhood. I got my bike registered under my name (which meant some rules had to be overlooked... oops) and I went to a gym I had researched before coming to my city, a gym that had yoga classes, and liked what I saw so I signed up for a membership. The guy who runs the gym is really nice, the gym always plays eurobeat music, and women get a discount on the membership price, which makes it reasonable by Japanese standards (though a good $10-15 more a month than I paid for my membership back home, which was the cheapest around). It's also within biking distance! So far I've biked to the gym whenever I can (whenever it's not raining or about to rain--or stupidly hot).
The Saturday before I started going to my school, the local ALTs had a combination birthday party for four people/welcome party for us new people. It started at an izakaya with all-you-can-drink, and once that ended we made the rounds of a few local bars. One had a second floor that felt like a loft, and one is a "pirate bar" where you can be quite literally locked up in a room (we didn't do that). One is very popular with English teachers and has a lot of themed nights and events. It was really great to get to know everyone in the area better.
Then on Monday September 3, I began my first week at my school. My commute is only five minutes by car, it's pretty great. But that week was all taken over by sports day (sort of like our field day), and I didn't teach at all. I did a lot of sitting in the staff room! The first day, there was an assembly and I gave a speech in English which I'm sure no one except maybe the English teachers understood, and then that day and the next were all rehearsals for sports day, which was Wednesday. It was pretty brutal being outside all morning in the heat and humidity--my job was photographer, even though there was an actual pro photographer there, so I don't know what I was doing--even after I started hanging out mostly in the shade. I brought a 200-ml bottle of water, but it was not enough... I started to feel pretty faint and weak as we got closer to lunch. But I can't even imagine what it was like for the students who had to be out in the middle of the field under the sun, going through event after event. I didn't revive until the end of lunch when they passed out energy drinks and I had gotten myself a little more hydrated. Fortunately for me, at that point it started to rain and thunder! Everyone rushed outside to take down the decorations (giant plywood signs, one for each team--there were six) and all the afternoon events were canceled and postponed until Friday. I still had to be there until 4 though (I go to work from 8:30 to 4 every day).
That night there was an enkai, or formal work party where everyone blows off some steam, at a hotel downtown (which surprised me--usually they're held at izakayas, but there's a lot of staff so we wouldn't fit). Most of the food wasn't to my taste, and there was pretty much just beer to drink (I discovered the wine too late), and we all had assigned seats, so I didn't have a great time, but towards the end people got up and mingled around the room, and I was able to have some pretty good conversations with some of the other teachers. Oh, and they made me give a speech since I'm new, and I seriously credit Middlebury with my ability to do that (all in Japanese) and do it capably. I basically just talked about how I thought I might faint at sports day (which got a laugh, as intended), but I was inspired seeing the students out there working harder under worse conditions, so I was impressed by the students and the teachers, and I want to work as hard as them here, and I'm grateful to everyone for welcoming me, etc etc. It was very much a speech tailored to exactly what Japanese people expect and want to hear. I'm not above pandering if I know how to do it! It had been in the employee newsletter than I speak Japanese, and I'd had conversations with a few people, but the speech basically established to everyone "Oh, her language skills are actually legit. Cool" and that was pretty much what it accomplished for me. Afterwards I got compliments on the speech and my Japanese, and more people seemed willing to approach me and begin a conversation, though that could have been the alcohol too!
After an enkai there's always a nijikai, or second party at a different location (usually karaoke, or going to a smaller restaurant or bar, and about 50-75% of the guests from the first party make it to the second), which I would have liked to attend, but I had taken a taxi there because it was raining, and forgotten to bring enough money to get back home again (the enkai and the taxi were both expensive), so after the party was officially called to an end (how Japanese is that?), the English teacher in charge of me got up to leave and she offered me a ride home, which I gladly accepted!! I knew she lived fairly close to me, so it all worked out.
Thursday the school was closed (I think it had been open for class the previous Saturday, to accommodate sports day, so this was a compensatory day off) and then Friday we basically did the events that would have happened Wednesday if not for the rain.
And then the next week, which was this past one, went back to real classes and I started teaching. I visited every class in the school, which is 18--four a day Monday through Thursday, then two on Friday. In every class, it was me and the full-time English teacher, a Japanese woman (whose English aptitude is at varying levels, shall we say). I start off asking basic questions about the weather, day of the week, and date, and then this week I did a self-introduction. For every class I made a worksheet that corresponded to what I was talking about, and I had pictures. I think my self-intros were definitely educational, as every one incorporated grammar and sentence patterns out of the textbook, but I'm not sure how much the students enjoyed them. But I also don't know what junior high-schooler enjoys school. Well, whatever, I did my best! Most classes were mediocre to okay, not great but not bad. About three were bad, largely thanks to boys who wanted to look cool by making fun of me and imitating things I'd say, do, or even how I'd laugh. Those really got to me and I'm not looking forward to returning, which will unfortunately be every week. However, about 3-4 classes were very awesome and I enjoyed them a lot. I am glad the week is over. I had thought that from now on, I'd just be assisting the full-time teacher, pronouncing words, reading passages, etc, but already one teacher (unfortunately the one for the bad classes!) has asked me to make another worksheet and materials, this time on my summer vacation. I really don't want to... these students are not going to appreciate it... but, obviously, it's my job, so I'll do it.
The teachers at my school are very nice and the majority seem very capable. The students... well, the girls all love me, and comment "cute!" about me all the time, and I get shouts of my name or "Hello!!!" (pronounced the Japanese way) wherever I go, but overall, they all seem to be on the under-disciplined side. I think my school is a bit of a problem one. In Japan, students don't get sent out of the classroom for misbehaving, and there are no consequences if you don't do your work and even if you fail a class. You're still going to graduate. So the students who've figured that out just check out of class. And English, as a foreign language, is hard for them, so that's the one they're going to check out of the most. In every class, the teacher will give directions--write sentences, fill in blanks, etc--and there will be students sleeping, daydreaming, visiting with others, or walking around instead of doing the work. It's pretty appalling but there isn't much that can be done. My job doesn't extend to discipline. All I can do is try to be engaging and appealing, but I am new at this so I'm still pretty nervous and I might not be accomplishing that. And every time a smarmy middle school boy mocks my laugh or my tone of voice, that I am trying hard to keep energetic and upbeat (and therefore not "cool" and middle schoolers must be "cool"), my nerves and self-doubt increase, because I'm not confident or secure in my capability to do this yet.
My contract is until March. After that, I would really like to find a non-teaching job, since I have the Japanese skills for it, if I can manage to get a job like that--and I may not. It's going to be a gamble. But especially when I think about the hard parts of this job, and how isolated my city is (three hours away from the closest big city, Hiroshima), which I have been doing all this past week, I feel very motivated to try as hard as I can to make it happen.
On that note, I'm all registered for level N2 (second-highest one) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which is in December. Getting that certification will help me out a lot when it comes to job-hunting and my resume. I began studying out of N2 textbooks in January, and I study from them at school when I have free periods and no grading or preparing to do, plus I tested in that range on another exam this summer, so I think I should be able to pass it this time (I failed it in 2009). Fingers crossed! Oh, and I took an Oral Proficiency Interview while at Middlebury, and my result was low advanced. Yay!!! I've been upper intermediate forever (that was my level at Middlebury too) so it feels good to break into advanced, finally, in this one small way... even though I still have a long way to go!
For a little while, I was chafing at being here, where I will always look out of place and everyone will assume I don't speak the language, and being so far away from everyone I love especially my boyfriend, cat, and parents (except my sister in Beppu, of course!), but I am getting used to it little by little, as I get more familiar with the area and make more ties to people here. I am enjoying going to yoga (and working out at the gym too), and the Saturday morning yoga teacher is a parent at my school, as is another woman in the class! I have discovered an amazing cafe with wonderful coffee and desserts right by my gym, there is a weekly curry night with other English teachers (although the curry and naan there were among the worst I've ever had, even though actual Indian people run the restaurant and we can order in English from them!), there are a lot of sightseeing spots and restaurants/cafes/shops in this city I still want to explore (I went to the castle today!), and I'm slowly growing more comfortable and rooted here.
In one of my Friday classes, I mentioned I liked yakiniku (grilled meat, AKA Korean barbecue), and I think that inspired the teacher to invite me to a PTA lunch for the third-year students the next day with that as the menu. So I went to that after yoga, and it was really nice, and free! There were tons of griddles and they were cooking up meat, noodles, veggies (pumpkin!)... it was all so so good. As soon as I got there, a boy ran up to me with a plate of food! I think the students were glad to see me there even though a lot of them didn't approach me. I spent a while chatting with the teacher who had invited me, and we exchanged contact information, and will grab a meal together sometime soon! I also asked if I could sit in on the students' Japanese class sometime, because I have a feeling middle school Japanese is around my level in terms of Chinese characters, reading ability, and so on (maybe!!) so I would like to be able to learn along with the students if I can. It looks like I'm going to be able to! I hope I'm not too much of a distraction. That would be a really fun thing to get to do during my free periods, especially on Fridays. And, free Japanese classes for me! Haha.
Monday, August 20, 2012
First days in Japan
The past week has been so ridiculously eventful that it's really not even funny. In the span of a week I've packed up and left Oakland, California, where I was doing the Middlebury Japanese School at Mills College, spent a few days in Southern California with my relatives (went to the beach and Disneyland/California Adventure), finally came home to Texas for the first time in 9+ weeks but could only be there for two days and a night before I had to leave again, this time for Japan. My time in Texas was absolutely jam-packed and I can already think of several things I forgot to bring that I really should have, but oh well.
I arrived in Japan around 4 p.m. Tokyo time Saturday August 18, passed through immigration (receiving my new alien registration card there as per the new system--you used to have to apply for it at your local city office) and customs successfully, got my baggage and loaded it onto a cart, and once I emerged into the airport promptly sent off the biggest bag to the hotel in Hiroshima where I'd be undergoing teacher training. Delivery services like that in Japan are fantastic and very commonly used. From there it was time to make my way to Tokyo via trains while hauling my other two bags stacked on top of each other, which made for a very heavy thing to pull along behind me as I maneuvered through numerous train stations! This was also the first time I'd done this, as the previous two times I'd been to Japan, I was with a group or meeting a group and we all took the bus in together, and I didn't have to mind any bags.
So this was a new adventure! Took the Keisei Skyliner from the airport to Nippori Station, bought my bullet train ticket for the next day at the JR office there, rode the Yamanote Line one stop down to Nishi-Nippori Station, got onto the Chiyoda Line, and rode that quite a ways until Yoyogi-kouen Station, where Will was waiting for me. Yay! All of those things involved communication with various Japanese workers, and fortunately it all went well. I don't know why I thought it might be like people in shops or on the street and stuff, who will sometimes (in total shock at the sight of a foreigner) respond to your Japanese with English, but the station and delivery people were all ultra-professional and as soon as they heard my Japanese, (were probably relieved and) ran with it and just treated me normally. Probably hauling my stuff around was harder than that, really. I'm not sure I'd recommend making two train transfers while pulling a heavy weight behind you, but I also didn't have any good alternatives! Once I met up with Will we divided the bags and had a nice walk through his quiet neighborhood to reach his apartment, which is pretty great. He's renting it from an owner, which means it's better than direct rent places, and even has a specially added FULL kitchen with real countertops, which is super rare in Japan and especially in Tokyo. I met his girlfriend Mio there and after I took a quick shower (had gotten all sweaty with that journey) we went out to dinner. We had burgers in a cute little place nearby and it was fun. Then we walked through the neighborhood; a drunk salaryman attempted English with us! I let Will handle that one. After that though my energy started to flag fast and I passed out pretty quickly after that.
Of course, I woke up around 3:30 am. Will had left his iPad out for me to use, so I played around on it for a while, updating people, and then it started to get light outside so I sat on the balcony and took pictures, and once it got light I started to feel excited about being in Tokyo, in Japan, and about the day ahead of me.
Then I started watching TV and found an amazing program that was literally just footage of various birds and animals in nature, annotated only with their name at the beginning of each segment, set to classical music. It - was - fantastic. Then I repacked my suitcases. I did fall back asleep but not until 6 or so. Got up again around 7:30 and Will escorted me to the station. Will was really the best host and I am so happy he let me stay with him! YES to old Japanese 101 classmates who now live in Tokyo.
From Yoyogi-kouen Station it was Chiyoda Line to Kokkai-gijidou-mae Station, transferring there to the Marunouchi Line which took me to Tokyo Station. I walked just a short distance to the first bullet train entrance I found and located a coin locker that could fit my bags. I left them there and went to ride the Keiyou Line to Shin-Urayasu Station, where my host mom and sister would be waiting in their car to pick me up and take me back to their house for breakfast! Ahhh, it was so wonderful to see them again!!! And to see the house again! Ahhhhhh, memories!! My host mom is now 42 (instead of 36) and my host sister is now 13 (instead of 7) so things have changed! They also have a Chihuahua now (named Milk) in addition to the Pomeranian, Koron, I knew before. We had a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon (cut up into pieces, not strips), toast (also cut up into pieces), toasted (?) tortillas, and lettuce and tomatoes for salad. Definitely a western style breakfast, unfortunately my host mom knows all too well how picky I am...
My host mom thinks my Japanese has improved by leaps and bounds since the last time I saw them, and she's probably right. It's funny though that in that time period during which the Japanese improvement took place, I hadn't been to Japan once! But it was actually really nice because I feel like our communication has just opened up immensely. Before, I probably couldn't communicate a vast majority of the things I wanted to say. Now, I feel like I can say just about anything as long as the topic isn't too complicated (like economics, etc), even though I'm sure I'm making small mistakes. I like to think that if I could know how my Japanese sounds to native Japanese speakers, it probably sounds like how my friends' immigrant parents' English sounds to me. Which is to say, obviously not perfect but not bad or irritating by any means. I hope that's the case, anyway. So it's like the world has just opened up and I can be much more honest with them and have more real conversations about true feelings than I could in the past. I felt like I was finally letting a lot of my personality shine through, more than I ever had before with them, and it was wonderful. Of course, there were times when my host mom thought my Japanese was better than it was and she said some things I couldn't follow (which actually happens fairly often with me, with a lot of Japanese people...), and a few times when my pride wouldn't let me ask her to repeat them and instead I nodded along, but overall it went really well.
After breakfast my host mom drove me and my host sister around on a tour of Shin-Urayasu, mostly to all the places I used to go! It was so great, I feel so grateful that she indulged me in that wish. First we went to a park that was right on the ocean...
...then we went to Ito Yokado, a supermarket/department store with a food court on the ground floor. I had forgotten this completely, but since that place is right by Meikai University where my study abroad classes were held, I went to that food court with the other students several times. Before we got there I had told my host mom "Hmm, maybe I went here once..." and then once we got there and everything looked so familiar I had to revise that: "Wait, never mind, I've actually been here countless times!!" Then I noticed that there was shaved ice sold at a traditional Japanese food place, and my host mom decided to buy us all some. She got strawberry milk flavor, Na-chan (host sister) got grape, and I got melon. Yes! I love melon flavor in Japan! This was actually my first time eating Japanese shaved ice... well, unless you count the self-serve stuff at the Y's all-you-can-eat/drink place we used to go to. But I don't think that counts! Anyway, it was really good.
So we walked around the Meikai campus while eating shaved ice, which really helped with the heat and sun! We walked over to where the IES classes were held, and the building is still the same; we couldn't go in but we could see the signs. As always, it remains totally isolated from the rest of campus! Whyyyy? But, whatever!
At some point during the tour, we drove close to by the route I used to take to get from where I lived to the train station (which I'd ride one stop to Shin-Urayasu), and my host mom was like "Look! That's right near by where you fell off your bike!!" and I was just like "......I had hoped you'd forgotten about that..." haha. After that, my host mom dropped me and Na-chan off at the station, while she took the car back to the house since my host dad needed it, and rode the bus back to the station to meet us. In the meantime Na-chan and I visited the food court in the Daiei building by the station (which is where we all usually ate lunch after class--something that seems sooooo strange to me now, eating out for lunch EVERY DAY!! That was back when I cared a lot less about what I ate--so it was super nostalgic! Some places have changed, like the yakisoba place is replaced with something else, but a lot is still the same!). We also went to the 300 yen shop inside the station building, which I am so glad is still there! I loved that place, but it's a bit different now. The socks and accessories sections are smaller, while the home goods sections are much larger. There's also a big focus on "natural" type products (things that look simple, earthy, etc), which is a trend I'm noticing everywhere in Japan now as compared to six years ago. Then we went back to the Daiei building since Na-chan wanted to go to the pet store there. Kanako-san (host mom) found us there, and we got on the train and rode it one stop over to Maihama, which is the Tokyo Disney Resort station, since I wanted to go to Ikspiari, another place my host family took me to a lot. Ikspiari is like the equivalent of Downtown Disney, a shopping center right outside the parks. We went to the big Disney store there, and my host mom ended up buying us all these little wet towel things that absorb water but don't feel dripping wet, and you can use them to cool off in the heat. Mine is Minnie Mouse! Again, getting super spoiled by my host family...
From there it was time to head to Tokyo Station. I was fine going alone but my host mom said she and Na-chan would come along to see me off. In the end, I am glad they did. Because things got crazy from this point on. While we were on the platform waiting for the train, I pulled out my wallet thinking I'd show them my alien registration card. Only--it wasn't in my wallet. And it wasn't in my bag, anywhere. And I had no reason to think it would be anywhere else than where I'd put it, in a slot in my wallet. Then I realized what must have happened. When I got the card, I put it into the one empty card slot in my wallet, the one on the edge, which I had previously stuffed full of all kinds of reward cards, which I had emptied knowing I wouldn't need them in Japan. But because it had been stuffed with like 5-10 cards, it had gotten stretched out, so if you put just one card in it, that card would be likely to fall out. I had forgotten that, so I put the card in there anyway. (What's frustrating is that if I hadn't put a car insurance card into my wallet just in case I needed it while I was at home driving for those two days, and if I had remembered to take it out before I left, I would have put the alien registration card in that pocket instead, and it probably wouldn't have fallen out. Ugh! But I was so busy getting stuff ready and packing right up until the last minute, I forgot at least three things including to take out the car insurance card. Really, losing this card is a sign of how incredibly busy and stressed I've been and how forgetful that's made me.) Anyway, since that card pocket is right on the edge of the wallet--which can double as a clutch--a card in it could fall right out onto the ground. And that's exactly what happened the night before, walking around with Will and Mio, carrying only my wallet. Uuugghhhhh.
So, this is VERY BAD. As a foreigner in Japan you are supposed to have that card on you at all times and it's the one thing aside from my passport and money I should NOT have lost. But I did. So, on the train my host mom called the police for that neighborhood (probably--I'm not certain, but I think that she called the right one) and notified them; of course they didn't have it. And of course I didn't have time to go back and look for it, I had my bullet train to Hiroshima to catch. And THEN we got to Tokyo Station and it was crazy and nothing looked familiar, so it was impossible to find the locker where I'd stowed my luggage! Finally, I found it, but that meant I only barely made my train. We seriously had moments of running through the station, dodging people, first without the luggage and then with it, and after I said goodbye to them (in disbelief that my situation had gotten that bad and they'd had to help me out so much!) and passed through the gates alone I went up to the wrong platform and there was no down escalator to get back to where I could get up to the right one. By the time I FINALLY got to my train, it was minutes away from leaving, and I had emerged near car 7 and needed to be in car 15. I had to board it right there and begin walking through all the cars with all my stuff, sweaty and dehydrated, and before I got to my seat the train started moving. I was also quite possibly the only foreigner on the entire train; at least I didn't see anyone else, so standing out when I was already having a bad time was another unpleasant thing. Let's just say I was fairly miserable for the first half an hour of the journey... but I got water and a bit of food (I had planned to buy a lunch at the station but thanks to the locker search had no time), I rehydrated, I changed out of my sweat-soaked jeans, I calmed down... but I still just couldn't relax the entire time, which sucks because I had really been looking forward to taking the bullet train and having a long stretch of time to enjoy myself.
Then I got to Hiroshima Station and didn't see anyone from the company waiting outside the gates! I walked around for 10 minutes, again carrying the heavy luggage, and finally saw someone, and met up with a small group, and we got back on the trains to ride 45 minutes, and then a car ride, to this training facility out in Higashi-Hiroshima (east Hiroshima). It is like the middle of nowhere out here, but I guess it doesn't really matter.
Today was the first day of training, and it was all right. For some reason I was really panicky all morning, I think I've just been wearing myself too thin and the shocks of yesterday (losing an important thing, almost missing my train) really did a number on me. I had recovered by the afternoon, which is good because that's when we divided into groups and did a 5-minute lesson. I wasn't nervous, but I knew since it was only my second time teaching something it wasn't going to go very well, and I did get a lot of critiques. Basically, I need to smile more and appear more confident/comfortable up at the front, but I think that last bit can only come from experience and until then I have to fake it. In short I have to try and be a very good actor. Acting like an extrovert though I am not, acting comfortable with 30 pairs of eyes on me when I am not, etc. Before I tried the lesson I had been even a little excited to get up and give it a go, but now I'm just aware of all my shortcomings and how hard this is for me. I'm going to keep trying but it's just not something that comes naturally. I have no idea what the rest of the week holds (except that Friday is our "final exam" where we will each give a full 45/50-minute lesson in front of everyone else) but I'm sure it will only get worse from here, but I guess my teaching can only get better. Well, with any luck.
As for the alien registration card, I told the company about it immediately and it should be fine, but I'll have to go to city hall first thing upon arriving in my new home next week and hopefully be able to obtain a document saying my new card is being processed, and then use that document to do things like open a bank account and get a cell phone that I would have needed the actual card for. As you can see, the card is pretty important!! And I lost it! Ugghhh. This is the year of losing really important, really valuable things for me. It's like the third or fourth thing I've lost. I am sick of it!
Anyway, it's been a whirlwind. I'm doing fine jet lag wise, but I can't wait for things to calm down, and for teaching to be less stressful. Use simple English without rambling... control your gestures... smile... appear excited... get the kids engaged... so much to remember...
I arrived in Japan around 4 p.m. Tokyo time Saturday August 18, passed through immigration (receiving my new alien registration card there as per the new system--you used to have to apply for it at your local city office) and customs successfully, got my baggage and loaded it onto a cart, and once I emerged into the airport promptly sent off the biggest bag to the hotel in Hiroshima where I'd be undergoing teacher training. Delivery services like that in Japan are fantastic and very commonly used. From there it was time to make my way to Tokyo via trains while hauling my other two bags stacked on top of each other, which made for a very heavy thing to pull along behind me as I maneuvered through numerous train stations! This was also the first time I'd done this, as the previous two times I'd been to Japan, I was with a group or meeting a group and we all took the bus in together, and I didn't have to mind any bags.
So this was a new adventure! Took the Keisei Skyliner from the airport to Nippori Station, bought my bullet train ticket for the next day at the JR office there, rode the Yamanote Line one stop down to Nishi-Nippori Station, got onto the Chiyoda Line, and rode that quite a ways until Yoyogi-kouen Station, where Will was waiting for me. Yay! All of those things involved communication with various Japanese workers, and fortunately it all went well. I don't know why I thought it might be like people in shops or on the street and stuff, who will sometimes (in total shock at the sight of a foreigner) respond to your Japanese with English, but the station and delivery people were all ultra-professional and as soon as they heard my Japanese, (were probably relieved and) ran with it and just treated me normally. Probably hauling my stuff around was harder than that, really. I'm not sure I'd recommend making two train transfers while pulling a heavy weight behind you, but I also didn't have any good alternatives! Once I met up with Will we divided the bags and had a nice walk through his quiet neighborhood to reach his apartment, which is pretty great. He's renting it from an owner, which means it's better than direct rent places, and even has a specially added FULL kitchen with real countertops, which is super rare in Japan and especially in Tokyo. I met his girlfriend Mio there and after I took a quick shower (had gotten all sweaty with that journey) we went out to dinner. We had burgers in a cute little place nearby and it was fun. Then we walked through the neighborhood; a drunk salaryman attempted English with us! I let Will handle that one. After that though my energy started to flag fast and I passed out pretty quickly after that.
Of course, I woke up around 3:30 am. Will had left his iPad out for me to use, so I played around on it for a while, updating people, and then it started to get light outside so I sat on the balcony and took pictures, and once it got light I started to feel excited about being in Tokyo, in Japan, and about the day ahead of me.
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| View from Will's balcony. The tall tower in the background is in Shinjuku. |
Then I started watching TV and found an amazing program that was literally just footage of various birds and animals in nature, annotated only with their name at the beginning of each segment, set to classical music. It - was - fantastic. Then I repacked my suitcases. I did fall back asleep but not until 6 or so. Got up again around 7:30 and Will escorted me to the station. Will was really the best host and I am so happy he let me stay with him! YES to old Japanese 101 classmates who now live in Tokyo.
From Yoyogi-kouen Station it was Chiyoda Line to Kokkai-gijidou-mae Station, transferring there to the Marunouchi Line which took me to Tokyo Station. I walked just a short distance to the first bullet train entrance I found and located a coin locker that could fit my bags. I left them there and went to ride the Keiyou Line to Shin-Urayasu Station, where my host mom and sister would be waiting in their car to pick me up and take me back to their house for breakfast! Ahhh, it was so wonderful to see them again!!! And to see the house again! Ahhhhhh, memories!! My host mom is now 42 (instead of 36) and my host sister is now 13 (instead of 7) so things have changed! They also have a Chihuahua now (named Milk) in addition to the Pomeranian, Koron, I knew before. We had a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon (cut up into pieces, not strips), toast (also cut up into pieces), toasted (?) tortillas, and lettuce and tomatoes for salad. Definitely a western style breakfast, unfortunately my host mom knows all too well how picky I am...
My host mom thinks my Japanese has improved by leaps and bounds since the last time I saw them, and she's probably right. It's funny though that in that time period during which the Japanese improvement took place, I hadn't been to Japan once! But it was actually really nice because I feel like our communication has just opened up immensely. Before, I probably couldn't communicate a vast majority of the things I wanted to say. Now, I feel like I can say just about anything as long as the topic isn't too complicated (like economics, etc), even though I'm sure I'm making small mistakes. I like to think that if I could know how my Japanese sounds to native Japanese speakers, it probably sounds like how my friends' immigrant parents' English sounds to me. Which is to say, obviously not perfect but not bad or irritating by any means. I hope that's the case, anyway. So it's like the world has just opened up and I can be much more honest with them and have more real conversations about true feelings than I could in the past. I felt like I was finally letting a lot of my personality shine through, more than I ever had before with them, and it was wonderful. Of course, there were times when my host mom thought my Japanese was better than it was and she said some things I couldn't follow (which actually happens fairly often with me, with a lot of Japanese people...), and a few times when my pride wouldn't let me ask her to repeat them and instead I nodded along, but overall it went really well.
After breakfast my host mom drove me and my host sister around on a tour of Shin-Urayasu, mostly to all the places I used to go! It was so great, I feel so grateful that she indulged me in that wish. First we went to a park that was right on the ocean...
 |
| Host mom and sister on the Chiba coastline! |
...then we went to Ito Yokado, a supermarket/department store with a food court on the ground floor. I had forgotten this completely, but since that place is right by Meikai University where my study abroad classes were held, I went to that food court with the other students several times. Before we got there I had told my host mom "Hmm, maybe I went here once..." and then once we got there and everything looked so familiar I had to revise that: "Wait, never mind, I've actually been here countless times!!" Then I noticed that there was shaved ice sold at a traditional Japanese food place, and my host mom decided to buy us all some. She got strawberry milk flavor, Na-chan (host sister) got grape, and I got melon. Yes! I love melon flavor in Japan! This was actually my first time eating Japanese shaved ice... well, unless you count the self-serve stuff at the Y's all-you-can-eat/drink place we used to go to. But I don't think that counts! Anyway, it was really good.
So we walked around the Meikai campus while eating shaved ice, which really helped with the heat and sun! We walked over to where the IES classes were held, and the building is still the same; we couldn't go in but we could see the signs. As always, it remains totally isolated from the rest of campus! Whyyyy? But, whatever!
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| The building where I had Japanese classes from Sept-Dec 2006. |
From there it was time to head to Tokyo Station. I was fine going alone but my host mom said she and Na-chan would come along to see me off. In the end, I am glad they did. Because things got crazy from this point on. While we were on the platform waiting for the train, I pulled out my wallet thinking I'd show them my alien registration card. Only--it wasn't in my wallet. And it wasn't in my bag, anywhere. And I had no reason to think it would be anywhere else than where I'd put it, in a slot in my wallet. Then I realized what must have happened. When I got the card, I put it into the one empty card slot in my wallet, the one on the edge, which I had previously stuffed full of all kinds of reward cards, which I had emptied knowing I wouldn't need them in Japan. But because it had been stuffed with like 5-10 cards, it had gotten stretched out, so if you put just one card in it, that card would be likely to fall out. I had forgotten that, so I put the card in there anyway. (What's frustrating is that if I hadn't put a car insurance card into my wallet just in case I needed it while I was at home driving for those two days, and if I had remembered to take it out before I left, I would have put the alien registration card in that pocket instead, and it probably wouldn't have fallen out. Ugh! But I was so busy getting stuff ready and packing right up until the last minute, I forgot at least three things including to take out the car insurance card. Really, losing this card is a sign of how incredibly busy and stressed I've been and how forgetful that's made me.) Anyway, since that card pocket is right on the edge of the wallet--which can double as a clutch--a card in it could fall right out onto the ground. And that's exactly what happened the night before, walking around with Will and Mio, carrying only my wallet. Uuugghhhhh.
So, this is VERY BAD. As a foreigner in Japan you are supposed to have that card on you at all times and it's the one thing aside from my passport and money I should NOT have lost. But I did. So, on the train my host mom called the police for that neighborhood (probably--I'm not certain, but I think that she called the right one) and notified them; of course they didn't have it. And of course I didn't have time to go back and look for it, I had my bullet train to Hiroshima to catch. And THEN we got to Tokyo Station and it was crazy and nothing looked familiar, so it was impossible to find the locker where I'd stowed my luggage! Finally, I found it, but that meant I only barely made my train. We seriously had moments of running through the station, dodging people, first without the luggage and then with it, and after I said goodbye to them (in disbelief that my situation had gotten that bad and they'd had to help me out so much!) and passed through the gates alone I went up to the wrong platform and there was no down escalator to get back to where I could get up to the right one. By the time I FINALLY got to my train, it was minutes away from leaving, and I had emerged near car 7 and needed to be in car 15. I had to board it right there and begin walking through all the cars with all my stuff, sweaty and dehydrated, and before I got to my seat the train started moving. I was also quite possibly the only foreigner on the entire train; at least I didn't see anyone else, so standing out when I was already having a bad time was another unpleasant thing. Let's just say I was fairly miserable for the first half an hour of the journey... but I got water and a bit of food (I had planned to buy a lunch at the station but thanks to the locker search had no time), I rehydrated, I changed out of my sweat-soaked jeans, I calmed down... but I still just couldn't relax the entire time, which sucks because I had really been looking forward to taking the bullet train and having a long stretch of time to enjoy myself.
Then I got to Hiroshima Station and didn't see anyone from the company waiting outside the gates! I walked around for 10 minutes, again carrying the heavy luggage, and finally saw someone, and met up with a small group, and we got back on the trains to ride 45 minutes, and then a car ride, to this training facility out in Higashi-Hiroshima (east Hiroshima). It is like the middle of nowhere out here, but I guess it doesn't really matter.
Today was the first day of training, and it was all right. For some reason I was really panicky all morning, I think I've just been wearing myself too thin and the shocks of yesterday (losing an important thing, almost missing my train) really did a number on me. I had recovered by the afternoon, which is good because that's when we divided into groups and did a 5-minute lesson. I wasn't nervous, but I knew since it was only my second time teaching something it wasn't going to go very well, and I did get a lot of critiques. Basically, I need to smile more and appear more confident/comfortable up at the front, but I think that last bit can only come from experience and until then I have to fake it. In short I have to try and be a very good actor. Acting like an extrovert though I am not, acting comfortable with 30 pairs of eyes on me when I am not, etc. Before I tried the lesson I had been even a little excited to get up and give it a go, but now I'm just aware of all my shortcomings and how hard this is for me. I'm going to keep trying but it's just not something that comes naturally. I have no idea what the rest of the week holds (except that Friday is our "final exam" where we will each give a full 45/50-minute lesson in front of everyone else) but I'm sure it will only get worse from here, but I guess my teaching can only get better. Well, with any luck.
As for the alien registration card, I told the company about it immediately and it should be fine, but I'll have to go to city hall first thing upon arriving in my new home next week and hopefully be able to obtain a document saying my new card is being processed, and then use that document to do things like open a bank account and get a cell phone that I would have needed the actual card for. As you can see, the card is pretty important!! And I lost it! Ugghhh. This is the year of losing really important, really valuable things for me. It's like the third or fourth thing I've lost. I am sick of it!
Anyway, it's been a whirlwind. I'm doing fine jet lag wise, but I can't wait for things to calm down, and for teaching to be less stressful. Use simple English without rambling... control your gestures... smile... appear excited... get the kids engaged... so much to remember...
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Back to Japan...
I guess I've been waiting a long time to be able to write this entry (backdated to the day/time of my arrival in Japan this third time around). I always knew I'd resurrect this blog the next time I came back to Japan, but I didn't know it would take me six years to do so. A brief recap is probably in order. I started studying Japanese in college, after wanting to study it for a long time and picking up random words over the course of adolescence. That desire was thanks to a teenage obsession with anime and manga I'll blame on the bad influences friends who got our whole group into it. This coincided with the discovery that I might have a knack for foreign languages, and after I added French to Spanish in high school it only made sense to add Japanese too once I could since I'd been exposed to it for a while by that point. Thus, I chose a college that had a Japanese program over one that did not, and I forced my way into Japanese 101 after the course had already closed. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I loved learning Japanese almost immediately and had a great time with all my classmates, so much so that I ignored my declared French major to apply to live in the Japanese wing of my school's language house. I was accepted and spent a wonderful sophomore year in the Japanese house, punctuated by a January term to Japan that was my first trip abroad; I was fortunate enough to win a scholarship that paid for it. As part of the course/trip, I stayed with a host family in Chiba (near Tokyo) for one week and spent two more weeks traveling around Japan. Some of my fellow travelers/classmates were not my ideal people to spend 2-3 weeks with, and some parts of the itinerary were not quite aligned with my interests, so it was an uneven trip overall but the impressions of Japan stayed with me. It had been such a different experience from anything I'd ever known, and it was such a trip to be in the place with the language and cultural exports I'd been familiar with for about six years by that point, since a formative time in my youth. I thought it might be a fun one-off adventure, but upon my return I started to almost miss it more and more. Then more and more people I knew from the language house decided to study abroad in Japan the next fall, and our native-Japanese-speaker TA who lived in the house with us announced she was taking a job with the study abroad program everyone was doing, and would be working in their office. Hearing all that, I couldn't resist deciding to join them, which meant disrupting plans of a full year in Paris. It was a fantastic decision; I had the time of my life, made amazing friends, and got to live where I could see my old host family once a month and go into Tokyo anytime I wanted. After that experience, doing exactly what I loved, Paris was truly a disappointment (as nauseatingly entitled as that sounds--obviously, the city itself wasn't, because it's freaking Paris, but the program and people were). But that's another story...
My senior year of college, naturally, I started to think more and more about careers. I wanted to pursue a path that would allow me to use Japanese professionally (becoming a translator), but couldn't see how to make it happen. I'd apply for local Japanese-using jobs, but would always get rejected because I wasn't a native speaker or close enough. Same for the wonderful grad school with a translation program I found--my Japanese wasn't good enough to be accepted to it. So, since my Japanese needed to be better: move to Japan. But--I had just gotten into my first real relationship, and I wasn't willing to cut it short by departing for Japan as soon as I could upon graduation. We agreed that when he graduated, we'd move to Japan and teach English together, and in the meantime I would wait for him and look for jobs in a field that utilized my English degree and publishing internship experience. Four years later... haha. Four years later, I was working as an editor (/writer/proofreader) at a small coffee table book publisher, he had graduated and gone into digital forensics almost immediately, and it looked like I was on my own for this whole Japan thing. So, there were some twists and turns along the way, but finally I was able to do what I knew I'd needed to for years, and make moving to Japan a reality. And now here I am!
Before arriving in Japan, I quit my job at the beginning of the summer and spent the summer doing an intensive Japanese language program: Middlebury. We all had to sign a pledge swearing not to use English all summer, for two months/eight weeks, and we attended four hours of classes every weekday morning. We lived on a college campus in Northern California. I was sorted into the second-highest level there, a class of 10 people with four teachers, and ate meals in the cafeteria every day with other Japanese school students. It was fantastic. It was seriously one of the best experiences of my life. It's that feeling when you're doing EXACTLY what you want and need to be doing, and it feels so right. There were (many) stressful times too, and I had to do things I don't like (and would never have to do as a pro translator) such as writing Japanese and kanji by hand, but overall, it was a fantastic fabulous experience, I was lucky enough to make great friends and have largely amazing classmates, across-the-board awesome teachers, and it was just one of the best times of my life that prepared and primed me perfectly for coming to Japan. I'm convinced that it's one of the best ways to progress your Japanese--even more so that simply living in Japan. I recommend it to anyone, for any language. I miss it so much!
I'm going to live in Japan, teach English, and try to parlay my Japanese abilities (which right now are right on the cusp between intermediate and advanced) into a non-teaching job, and/or try to get a bunch of freelance translating assignments and start to build a portfolio. Eventually I want to go to that grad school with a translation program, but we'll see how everything plays out. I definitely don't plan to live in Japan forever, or indefinitely. It's hard being separated from my boyfriend, friends, family, and pet cat, and teaching isn't a natural fit for me (I'm an introvert), but I get to live in the place where they speak the language I love, and hear it and speak it myself just about every day. I'm going to make the most out of my time here and hope it all works out for the best in the end! I hope you enjoy following along on my adventures.
P.S. I'd also like to note that Audrey, one of my closest friend during my time studying abroad with IES Tokyo who was mentioned often in my fall 2006 posts, was killed on April 21, 2011. She was struck by a turning truck as she rode her bike around downtown Minneapolis. The news came as a complete shock to me and it's absolutely one of the worst tragedies I know. Audrey loved Japanese like I did, had so much promise ahead of her, and we had so much fun together during study abroad. We hadn't been in regular contact when she died, which I'll always regret, but she had been in my thoughts often, and now even more so. Audrey was a wonderful, fun person, and I'm so sad her life was cut short and she's gone.
My senior year of college, naturally, I started to think more and more about careers. I wanted to pursue a path that would allow me to use Japanese professionally (becoming a translator), but couldn't see how to make it happen. I'd apply for local Japanese-using jobs, but would always get rejected because I wasn't a native speaker or close enough. Same for the wonderful grad school with a translation program I found--my Japanese wasn't good enough to be accepted to it. So, since my Japanese needed to be better: move to Japan. But--I had just gotten into my first real relationship, and I wasn't willing to cut it short by departing for Japan as soon as I could upon graduation. We agreed that when he graduated, we'd move to Japan and teach English together, and in the meantime I would wait for him and look for jobs in a field that utilized my English degree and publishing internship experience. Four years later... haha. Four years later, I was working as an editor (/writer/proofreader) at a small coffee table book publisher, he had graduated and gone into digital forensics almost immediately, and it looked like I was on my own for this whole Japan thing. So, there were some twists and turns along the way, but finally I was able to do what I knew I'd needed to for years, and make moving to Japan a reality. And now here I am!
Before arriving in Japan, I quit my job at the beginning of the summer and spent the summer doing an intensive Japanese language program: Middlebury. We all had to sign a pledge swearing not to use English all summer, for two months/eight weeks, and we attended four hours of classes every weekday morning. We lived on a college campus in Northern California. I was sorted into the second-highest level there, a class of 10 people with four teachers, and ate meals in the cafeteria every day with other Japanese school students. It was fantastic. It was seriously one of the best experiences of my life. It's that feeling when you're doing EXACTLY what you want and need to be doing, and it feels so right. There were (many) stressful times too, and I had to do things I don't like (and would never have to do as a pro translator) such as writing Japanese and kanji by hand, but overall, it was a fantastic fabulous experience, I was lucky enough to make great friends and have largely amazing classmates, across-the-board awesome teachers, and it was just one of the best times of my life that prepared and primed me perfectly for coming to Japan. I'm convinced that it's one of the best ways to progress your Japanese--even more so that simply living in Japan. I recommend it to anyone, for any language. I miss it so much!
I'm going to live in Japan, teach English, and try to parlay my Japanese abilities (which right now are right on the cusp between intermediate and advanced) into a non-teaching job, and/or try to get a bunch of freelance translating assignments and start to build a portfolio. Eventually I want to go to that grad school with a translation program, but we'll see how everything plays out. I definitely don't plan to live in Japan forever, or indefinitely. It's hard being separated from my boyfriend, friends, family, and pet cat, and teaching isn't a natural fit for me (I'm an introvert), but I get to live in the place where they speak the language I love, and hear it and speak it myself just about every day. I'm going to make the most out of my time here and hope it all works out for the best in the end! I hope you enjoy following along on my adventures.
P.S. I'd also like to note that Audrey, one of my closest friend during my time studying abroad with IES Tokyo who was mentioned often in my fall 2006 posts, was killed on April 21, 2011. She was struck by a turning truck as she rode her bike around downtown Minneapolis. The news came as a complete shock to me and it's absolutely one of the worst tragedies I know. Audrey loved Japanese like I did, had so much promise ahead of her, and we had so much fun together during study abroad. We hadn't been in regular contact when she died, which I'll always regret, but she had been in my thoughts often, and now even more so. Audrey was a wonderful, fun person, and I'm so sad her life was cut short and she's gone.
Friday, December 22, 2006
New blog
Even though I studied abroad in Japan, I'm actually a French major, so I'm going to spend the following spring semester (2007) studying abroad in Paris, France, and I'll also keep a blog of that. In case you want to visit it, here's the link.
>> http://sarah-france.blogspot.com
>> http://sarah-france.blogspot.com
Useful Links & How To Go To The Butler Cafe
So my time in Japan studying abroad is now over, which means I will also no longer post in this blog anymore. I hope it can still remain a good educational tool for anyone considering studying abroad in Tokyo/Japan, however, and that anyone reading these entries gains insight into the experience. Here I'll provide a list of helpful links and advice for anyone needing help and information about studying abroad in Japan.
Programs
- IES Tokyo (this is the one I did. There's also IES Nagoya)
- List of other study abroad programs in Japan (the first thing to do, however, is to check with your school and see what programs they offer for studying abroad in Japan. Often those will limit which program you can do)
Financial Aid/Scholarships
- Freeman Asia (I wound up getting $5,000 from them, which helped me out immensely, so it's definitely worth a shot)
- Bridging Scholarship
- IES scholarships (if your program is IES, of course. I got $500 from the Foreign Language scholarship, and $250 from the Need-Based scholarship)
- List of other study abroad in Japan scholarships
- your school's own scholarships; mine has study abroad-based scholarships
As for studying abroad, I can say wholeheartedly that it is a worthwhile experience and if you want to do it, you definitely should. Don't let financial problems get in the way, there are always scholarships you can apply for and if you're passionate about going you're likely to get them.
If you have any more questions, you can feel free to email me or leave a comment on this entry (link at the bottom). I'd be more than happy to answer whatever you want to know. :)
One more thing...
How To Go To Swallowtail Butler Cafe In Tokyo
I'm sure there are people that want to know how to do this, so I wrote this how-to to help you all out. I hope you have a more successful experience than mine (where, in the end, I didn't make the reservation right and didn't get to go, even though I found it!). :)
Making The Reservation
Basic Japanese knowledge is pretty much necessary for this step, so if you don't know any, try to ask a Japanese friend or a friend who knows Japanese to help you here. (If you don't know much, you can use Rikaichan on the pages to help you figure out what's going on.) Because Swallowtail is so popular, reservations fill up fast. You make your reservation online (HERE), and new reservations for a date exactly a month from a given day are made available at midnight, Japan time. (So if you want to reserve for December 17, be online at midnight November 16 [as it becomes the 17th].)
1. Have the window with the list of reservations open about 5 minutes before midnight, and keep refreshing (there will be several pages, with the oldest times on the first page. The newest times will show up on the last page, so be sure to click through to the end). Pretty soon a new list of times will appear. You will need to know beforehand how many people are coming (if you don't know exactly, make a larger reservation than necessary. They can't add seats) and it's best to be flexible about the time.
2. Act quick. When you find a time and a number of people that suits you, click on the link immediately (they really do go fast). Put in your email address and your number of people, and hit the button.
3. You will get sent an email asking you to confirm your reservation. Follow the instructions in the email and finalize your reservation (this is the step I missed, so it's very important. If you don't finalize it, your reservation becomes invalid).
4. Wait for a month until you can go.
It's also not necessary to reserve a month in advance if you see a date and time on the website's list of open reservations that suits you, but those are usually for weekdays and/or for small numbers of people--which is why no one wants them--and probably won't work with your schedule if you're not a tourist, which is why reserving for a month in advance is good for trying to get weekend times with larger amounts of people.
If you don't live in Tokyo and you're planning to visit either from somewhere else in Japan or from another country, you can also plan out a day to go to the butler cafe and make the reservation in advance accordingly. Be sure to look up what time Japan time midnight is where you are (Time Zone Converter). For example, midnight in Tokyo on a certain day is 9:00 a.m. U.S. central time the PRECEDING day.
Getting There
Swallowtail Butler Cafe is located in Ikebukuro, which is a major station that both Tokyo Metro and JR Yamanote stop at. You can use the website Hyperdia to help you find the fastest and cheapest route there from wherever you are. Arrange to have your party meet at the East Entrance about 30 minutes before your reservation.
(These directions are translated and adapted from the Japanese directions provided on the Butler Cafe website)
1. From the East Entrance, cross the street directly. Once you are across, begin walking right.
2. Continue walking for a couple of minutes. You will come to a fairly busy-looking street (one landmark is the Sanrio Hello Kitty store on the right side). This is Sunshine 60. Turn left onto it and begin walking down it. You should pass by a couple of movie theatres, as well as a Saizeriya and some other things (a Tokyu Hands too).
3. You will come to an overhead pass. Go straight underneath it. There should be a Libro bookstore, a Family Mart, and an am-pm on the left side of the street. You should also begin to see some billboards that will let you know you have arrived at "Otome Doori."
4. Keep walking. When you see a second Family Mart, you are there and you should be able to find it easily. The Butler Cafe is on the basement level, so there will be steps leading down to it. There will probably be a line of women going up the steps. Join the line, and wait for the butler with a clipboard to get to you. He will ask your name, and if you did everything right your reservation will be there and you can soon go in. Have fun!!
Programs
- IES Tokyo (this is the one I did. There's also IES Nagoya)
- List of other study abroad programs in Japan (the first thing to do, however, is to check with your school and see what programs they offer for studying abroad in Japan. Often those will limit which program you can do)
Financial Aid/Scholarships
- Freeman Asia (I wound up getting $5,000 from them, which helped me out immensely, so it's definitely worth a shot)
- Bridging Scholarship
- IES scholarships (if your program is IES, of course. I got $500 from the Foreign Language scholarship, and $250 from the Need-Based scholarship)
- List of other study abroad in Japan scholarships
- your school's own scholarships; mine has study abroad-based scholarships
As for studying abroad, I can say wholeheartedly that it is a worthwhile experience and if you want to do it, you definitely should. Don't let financial problems get in the way, there are always scholarships you can apply for and if you're passionate about going you're likely to get them.
If you have any more questions, you can feel free to email me or leave a comment on this entry (link at the bottom). I'd be more than happy to answer whatever you want to know. :)
One more thing...
How To Go To Swallowtail Butler Cafe In Tokyo
I'm sure there are people that want to know how to do this, so I wrote this how-to to help you all out. I hope you have a more successful experience than mine (where, in the end, I didn't make the reservation right and didn't get to go, even though I found it!). :)
Making The Reservation
Basic Japanese knowledge is pretty much necessary for this step, so if you don't know any, try to ask a Japanese friend or a friend who knows Japanese to help you here. (If you don't know much, you can use Rikaichan on the pages to help you figure out what's going on.) Because Swallowtail is so popular, reservations fill up fast. You make your reservation online (HERE), and new reservations for a date exactly a month from a given day are made available at midnight, Japan time. (So if you want to reserve for December 17, be online at midnight November 16 [as it becomes the 17th].)
1. Have the window with the list of reservations open about 5 minutes before midnight, and keep refreshing (there will be several pages, with the oldest times on the first page. The newest times will show up on the last page, so be sure to click through to the end). Pretty soon a new list of times will appear. You will need to know beforehand how many people are coming (if you don't know exactly, make a larger reservation than necessary. They can't add seats) and it's best to be flexible about the time.
2. Act quick. When you find a time and a number of people that suits you, click on the link immediately (they really do go fast). Put in your email address and your number of people, and hit the button.
3. You will get sent an email asking you to confirm your reservation. Follow the instructions in the email and finalize your reservation (this is the step I missed, so it's very important. If you don't finalize it, your reservation becomes invalid).
4. Wait for a month until you can go.
It's also not necessary to reserve a month in advance if you see a date and time on the website's list of open reservations that suits you, but those are usually for weekdays and/or for small numbers of people--which is why no one wants them--and probably won't work with your schedule if you're not a tourist, which is why reserving for a month in advance is good for trying to get weekend times with larger amounts of people.
If you don't live in Tokyo and you're planning to visit either from somewhere else in Japan or from another country, you can also plan out a day to go to the butler cafe and make the reservation in advance accordingly. Be sure to look up what time Japan time midnight is where you are (Time Zone Converter). For example, midnight in Tokyo on a certain day is 9:00 a.m. U.S. central time the PRECEDING day.
Getting There
Swallowtail Butler Cafe is located in Ikebukuro, which is a major station that both Tokyo Metro and JR Yamanote stop at. You can use the website Hyperdia to help you find the fastest and cheapest route there from wherever you are. Arrange to have your party meet at the East Entrance about 30 minutes before your reservation.
(These directions are translated and adapted from the Japanese directions provided on the Butler Cafe website)
1. From the East Entrance, cross the street directly. Once you are across, begin walking right.
2. Continue walking for a couple of minutes. You will come to a fairly busy-looking street (one landmark is the Sanrio Hello Kitty store on the right side). This is Sunshine 60. Turn left onto it and begin walking down it. You should pass by a couple of movie theatres, as well as a Saizeriya and some other things (a Tokyu Hands too).
3. You will come to an overhead pass. Go straight underneath it. There should be a Libro bookstore, a Family Mart, and an am-pm on the left side of the street. You should also begin to see some billboards that will let you know you have arrived at "Otome Doori."
4. Keep walking. When you see a second Family Mart, you are there and you should be able to find it easily. The Butler Cafe is on the basement level, so there will be steps leading down to it. There will probably be a line of women going up the steps. Join the line, and wait for the butler with a clipboard to get to you. He will ask your name, and if you did everything right your reservation will be there and you can soon go in. Have fun!!
Last Days In Japan
All right, FINALLY, here it is, my last days in Japan.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Even though we'd taken the Japanese final the previous day, we still had to come to school for one last final thing. We all recited our Japanese compositions, and my class had to do ours completely memorized. Mine was fine, whatever, and then afterwards we had a little goodbye party (with food!) in the Meikai Club restaurant just like they'd had for us at the beginning of the year. It was fine, we said goodbye to our teachers and then I left with Deborah, Yuki, Trisha, Casey, Matt, Joe Kim/Riidaa and Adam (aka my Meikai Crew--I'll really miss eating with them after class, ahh!). We sort of puttered around the Daiei outside the station before separating. I went to the 300y store in Shin-Urayasu Station one last time to pick up some more presents (it's such a good place to find good, cute presents!) and then went home.
Aly was already there, and Brette got there later, and we mostly just spent the afternoon packing. Then around 4:30 we left for the Sayonara Party, which was of course in Kaihin Makuhari--in the Sumitomo building IES is in, no less, on the 14th floor or so where the cafeteria place (to which I still have a card with 640y on it that I never used up--arrgh) normally is. The Sayonara Party was pretty nice, I ran around getting just about everyone I'm friends with to sign my yearbook and take a picture with me. Matt Farrell was in charge of the slideshow that was supposed to be all nostalgic and awesome, but of course he forgot it, being Matt, and we were deprived of that. I'm sorry, I'm a huge sucker for watching a nostalgic slideshow at the end of something, and I don't like when it gets taken away from me because people, however much my friend they are, are irresponsible. grrrrr
Friday, December 15, 2006
Even though we'd taken the Japanese final the previous day, we still had to come to school for one last final thing. We all recited our Japanese compositions, and my class had to do ours completely memorized. Mine was fine, whatever, and then afterwards we had a little goodbye party (with food!) in the Meikai Club restaurant just like they'd had for us at the beginning of the year. It was fine, we said goodbye to our teachers and then I left with Deborah, Yuki, Trisha, Casey, Matt, Joe Kim/Riidaa and Adam (aka my Meikai Crew--I'll really miss eating with them after class, ahh!). We sort of puttered around the Daiei outside the station before separating. I went to the 300y store in Shin-Urayasu Station one last time to pick up some more presents (it's such a good place to find good, cute presents!) and then went home.
Aly was already there, and Brette got there later, and we mostly just spent the afternoon packing. Then around 4:30 we left for the Sayonara Party, which was of course in Kaihin Makuhari--in the Sumitomo building IES is in, no less, on the 14th floor or so where the cafeteria place (to which I still have a card with 640y on it that I never used up--arrgh) normally is. The Sayonara Party was pretty nice, I ran around getting just about everyone I'm friends with to sign my yearbook and take a picture with me. Matt Farrell was in charge of the slideshow that was supposed to be all nostalgic and awesome, but of course he forgot it, being Matt, and we were deprived of that. I'm sorry, I'm a huge sucker for watching a nostalgic slideshow at the end of something, and I don't like when it gets taken away from me because people, however much my friend they are, are irresponsible. grrrrr
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